Start making visual notes
Based on the concept of visual note-taking, the objective of this exercise was to watch a video and at the same time taking notes visually. The idea behind this method is to be fully engaged with the presentation, focusing on whats is important and what information to capture.
The video used to the exercise was a TED talk called how Giant Websites Design For You by Margaret Gould Stewart, the Facebook’s director of product design.
As a graphic designer I’m accustomed to think and memorize things more visually, but even having this in mind I’ve never actually thought about how this practice could help me to retain more information, stay more focus and pay more attention on what is worth it.
Results
To complete the exercise, I had to watch the video several times and keep pausing to be able to make my annotations. It was interesting on how I started to think more about how to make that content more visually, like an info graphic, and how I could make the information to pop up.
I think with some practice and time I’ll begin to synthesize better all the content leaving behind what was not so relevant.
Insights
One of the things that help me think more how to improve this kind of skill, was one TED talk called Doodler’s unite! by Sunni Brown.
The art of doodling consists in “make spontaneous marks to help yourself think”, it helps to process information and solve problems.
So, this method of translating auditive messages into visual data can be a crucial skill for an future UX designer, as on everyday life you will have the responsibility to transform ideas and possible solutions in sketches, wireframes and prototypes.
